An enormous horned dinosaur, weighing as much as an African
elephant with a skull extending about 8 feet (2.4 meters), was recently
discovered by a paleontologist — within the pages of a scientific journal
article.

The dinosaur,
dubbed Titanoceratops ouranos, lived in the American southwest
during the late Cretaceous period around 74 million years ago. The horned dinosaur
represents the earliest member of the Triceratops
lineage, called the Triceratopsini, suggesting the group evolved its large size
more than 5 million years earlier than previously thought, according to Yale
University paleontologist Nicholas Longrich, who made the discovery, which will
be detailed in an upcoming issue of the journal Cretaceous Research.

Until now, the oldest known member of the Triceratopsini was
the 68-million-year-old Eotriceratops
xerinsularis found in Alberta.

Longrich made the discovery while searching through
scientific papers. He came across a description of a partial skeleton of a dinosaur
discovered in New Mexico in 1941, which went untouched until 1995 when it was
identified as Pentaceratops sternbergi. When the missing part of its frill, a signature feature of the
horned dinosaurs, was reconstructed for display in the Sam Noble Oklahoma
Museum of Natural History, it was modeled after Pentaceratops.

"When I looked at the skeleton more closely, I realized
it was just too different from the other known Pentaceratops to be a
member of the species," Longrich said, adding that the specimen's size
indicated it likely weighed about twice as much as an adult Pentaceratops.

The new species is very similar to Triceratops, but
with a thinner frill, longer nose and slightly bigger horns, Longrich said.

Longrich thinks Titanoceratops is the ancestor of
both Triceratops and Torosaurus, and that the latter two split
several millions years after Titanoceratops evolved. "This skeleton
is exactly what you would expect their ancestor to look like," Longrich
said.

Next, Longrich
hopes other paleontologists will find fossil skeletons of Titanoceratops that
include intact frills to help confirm the differences between Titanoceratops
and Pentaceratops.

Live Science Staff

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